I've worked in professional kitchens for over fifteen years — at properties in Harare, Johannesburg, and briefly in Dubai. And in that time, I've interviewed hundreds of prospective kitchen staff.
The ones I hired quickly — the ones who hit the ground running — had one thing in common: they had trained in real environments before their first professional job.
Not just read about kitchen operations. Not just watched demonstrations. They had stood at a station, made mistakes, been corrected, and learned the rhythm of a working kitchen from the inside.
That's what we try to replicate at RIHBE.
The Problem with Theory-Only Education
Hospitality is a physical, sensory industry. You cannot learn knife skills from a textbook. You cannot understand the pace of a commercial kitchen from a lecture. You cannot learn to manage a difficult guest interaction by reading a case study.
Theory matters — understanding food science, hygiene principles, service protocols, and business management are all essential. But theory alone produces graduates who know what to do without knowing how to do it.
Note
At RIHBE, every programme includes a minimum of 40% practical contact hours. For culinary programmes, this rises to over 60%.
Employers notice immediately. They don't just ask "what do you know?" They ask: "Can you work a station during service? Can you handle a full house on Saturday night?"
What Our Training Kitchens Actually Teach
The physical skills — knife handling, mise en place, temperature control, plating — are the obvious ones. But the training kitchen teaches other things that are harder to learn anywhere else:
Pressure management. A commercial kitchen during service is a high-pressure environment. You have to learn to think clearly, communicate precisely, and perform technically when time is short and the stakes are real. You can only learn this by being in that environment.
Professional standards. The gap between home cooking and professional kitchen standards is enormous — in terms of hygiene, consistency, speed, and precision. Students who have trained in our kitchens arrive at their first job already calibrated to professional expectations.
Teamwork under load. A kitchen is a team. Your station affects every other station. Learning to communicate, cover, and support colleagues in a training environment means you already understand brigade culture before you enter the industry.
A Note to Parents and Students
I understand the appeal of purely online or classroom-based education. It's often more affordable and more flexible. And for some parts of hospitality education — theory, business management, communication — it works well.
But if you want a culinary career, there is no substitute for hands-on training in a professional environment. The labs at RIHBE exist because we believe this deeply.
When our graduates walk into their first kitchen, they're not starting from scratch. They're starting ahead.
Applications are open. If culinary arts is the path you're considering, come and see the facilities - we're happy to show you around.